


Hurricane

by Acai



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Future Fic, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-12 15:34:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18013559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acai/pseuds/Acai
Summary: With Neil, falling apart had never been a breaking point as much as it had been a surrender. Letting himself shut down and turn brittle was a privilege that he allowed himself on occasion. It was a storm that hovered for a stretch of days before striking, then receding quicker than it came.Andrew could see it coming.





	Hurricane

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: 12am  
> art blog: 12am-ink

With Neil, falling apart had never been a breaking point as much as it had been a surrender. Letting himself shut down and turn brittle was a privilege that he allowed himself on occasion. It was a storm that hovered for a stretch of days before striking, then receding quicker than it came. 

Andrew could see it coming. 

Neil would wake up to the world distant and stiff, functional but passive. He’d take longer getting ready, coming back from his run late and lingering in the shower, but he’d shake off the fog enough to get through practice--and he never paid attention in class, anyway. It was obvious, to anyone who looked for it, when Neil was on the radar of a storm. 

The closer he got to the eye, the more the passivity turned to stormy irritability. When Neil got in a mood, it wouldn’t go away until it had run its course. It would build until Neil reached his breaking point, and then it would boil over and leave Neil empty for Andrew to pick back up. 

It didn’t happen often. But when it did, Andrew knew to wait. 

It was how they got where they were, with Andrew on the couch and Neil at the dining table, looking high strung and tense to hell and back, stewing in whatever his bad mood had currently latched onto. The clip of his pen seemed to get the brunt of it, and Neil aggressed it enough that Andrew placed a silent bet on how long it would take for it to snap off entirely. 

When it did break off, Neil slapped the pen onto the table and turned his scowl to the half-written essay on his laptop screen.  _ What  _ was bothering him, Andrew didn’t know. But he did know that it didn’t really matter, because it would change again in five minutes. 

Andrew got through a page and a half of his book before Neil gave up on his essay. He snapped the lid shut and stood, but clearly he didn’t know what to do with his agitated energy now that he’d given up on schoolwork. If it were a good day, he may have settled down with Andrew and the cats on the couch to watch Netflix, or he may have grabbed his own book and curled up on the windowsill. 

Neil lingered, clenching and unclenching his fingers around the top of the chair. 

Andrew waited. 

In the end, Neil settled for slinking off to their room and slamming the door behind him. 

King grunted on Andrew’s chest, but the apartment settled into silence otherwise.

It stayed that way, leaving Andrew to figure out how to read with one hand while scratching King’s ear with the other. He made it work. 

When Andrew heard a little huff and felt a dip in the couch next to him, he knew that it was Sir come to tell him that it was dinnertime. She never missed it, always coming to hassle them within ten minutes of eight. 

When Andrew failed to immediately put his book down, Sir placed a paw on top of his book and let out an annoyed chirp. It was Andrew’s turn to huff, but he complied nonetheless. 

Sir trotted after him to the kitchen with King trailing after her, and they wove around his ankles and did their very best to trip him as Andrew grabbed their bowls to fill. All the while, Sir griped from the linoleum like she hadn’t eaten in days. 

_ Bastard,  _ Andrew thought, placing the filled bowls on the ground. He watched the cats eat for a minute before pulling his gaze away from them and directing it instead to the bedroom door. He’d given Neil enough time to fume alone. 

He knocked once, waiting long enough for a  _ no,  _ then pushing the door open when he didn’t hear a  _ yes,  _ either. 

Neil was on his back, laying on their bed with a pillow pressed to his face. He didn’t stir at Andrew’s entrance, but he was too tense to be asleep. 

“I fed the cats,” Andrew informed him, leaning on the doorway. Neil didn’t react. “I should probably feed you, too.” 

Neil wouldn’t be hungry. He never was, like this. But Andrew asked anyway, because he was soft now. 

“Not hungry,” Neil answered petulantly. 

Andrew waited for a beat. “Soup, then.” 

“I’m  _ not,”  _ Neil started, pulling the pillow away and unmuffling his voice. There was an unbidden tantrum brewing in his expression as he scowled. He didn’t finish his sentence, but Andrew already knew well enough what he was going to say. Not  _ hungry.  _ Of course he wasn’t, the stubborn little shit. 

“Talk,” Andrew said instead of beating a dead horse. “Why are you mad?” 

Neil’s fingers twisted into the pillowcase, and he glowered at the wall instead of answering. 

Andrew waited. 

“What was the fucking point?” Neil finally bit out, looking taut with stress and rage. “I don’t get--it was so--I  _ hate-- _ .” 

It was as far as Neil’s words would take him. Andrew saw how much there was in his head, because it was fucking hard to miss with the way it made his eyes look like a hurricane, but Neil had never been talented in the art of putting thoughts into words. It frustrated him, made him spit out a harsh breath and slam the pillow into the wall. 

Instead of settling him, Andrew pushed further, prodding and poking the bear to try and get the snap that he knew Neil needed. 

“Use your words,” he monotoned, knowing full well that if Neil knew how to do that, he would. 

Neil snapped up, and the blistering look he gave Andrew let him know that they were right in the eye of it now. 

“What was she planning?” Neil spat, less like a question than it was a jab. “ _ That?  _ Forever? It’s so fucking pointless.” 

He swung his feet over the edge of the bed, fretting his sleeves viciously while he congregated his thoughts, and for a moment the only noise in the room was the whispered whirring of the fan and a burst of wind from outside. And then Neil let go. 

“I’m not sorry about what happened. I wish--if there had been--she was  _ gone _ before then. I’m not sorry about what happened, or how anything turned out, because this is--it’s the best any of this could ever get. And it’s such  _ bullshit, _ ” Neil continued, voice raising the longer he went on. “That  _ this _ is the good ending. Because there never would have been anything else for her. She was so fucking-- _ crazy. _ And fuck her for that.” There was a tight edge to Andrew’s voice that would leave him wondering if Neil meant that or if it was just how raw grief took shape in this state of his. 

Neil didn’t keep going, breathing hard and wrapped in his own head. 

Andrew waited. 

And then the storm passed. 

When Neil fell apart, it was never a slow descent. It was never defenses lowering one by one, or a tired pull. It was everything dropping all in the same moment, and it was a trust that if he let himself drop, Andrew would keep everything together for him while he descended. 

With Neil, falling apart had never been a breaking point as much as it had been a surrender. Letting himself shut down and turn brittle was a privilege that he allowed himself on occasion. It was a storm that hovered for a stretch of days before striking, then receding quicker than it came. 

When Andrew needed to fall, it solved itself with complete control and a careful sorting-through or a neat avoidance of his thoughts. 

With Neil, it came with dropping every ounce of control and letting himself to selfishly abandon all the caution that he would place with Andrew until he was ready to take it back. 

So Andrew waited, and when Neil’s storm passed, he was ready for the fall. 

At Neil’s soft confirmation, Andrew was there next to him with one hand on the nape of Neil’s neck and the other twining into one of Neil’s hands. 

Neil let out a long breath of air, going slack against Andrew’s side. Andrew ran his thumb up and down along the hand that he held and Neil breathed in time to it. 

His breath had taken on a shudder, but Neil had never been the kind of man to cry about anything. Andrew had wondered, on occasion, what would happen if he did. Would it be part of his storm? Or would it be part of the calm that would follow? 

Neil shifted closer, just a little, and waited for Andrew to squeeze his hand in agreement before slotting his face to hide in Andrew’s neck. There, Andrew could feel his breath in short bursts against his skin that made his hard not to shiver at the feel. 

It was moments like these where the world slowed down like an old video, pieced together like a puzzle and placing themselves in open palms, where Andrew breathed. 

If he had considered, years ago, someone handing themselves over to him, he would have rolled his eyes. 

But it was Neil. And when it was Neil, Andrew would sit and breathe for as long as it took, and when Neil was ready, he would start to fit the pieces together in the way that he knew how to do so well. Until then, he’d sit and keep him safe, because that had always been what Andrew did best. 

He maneuvered until they could lay on their sides, keeping their fingers twined together and Neil’s face tucked away with a great deal of skill and practice. As some point, Neil fell asleep there like that, breathing deepening and muscles relaxing the rest of the way. 

Andrew considered slipping away, but in the end he settled on cautiously wrestling his phone from his pocket to pass the time. 

Eventually, he’d fall asleep there, too. In the morning, Neil would sleep in instead of going for his run, and they’d conveniently both have excuses to miss classes and practice the next day. 

Eventually, Neil would be ready to tug himself back together and let his storm pass for another day. 

Until then, Andrew would be waiting. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, leave a comment letting me know! Thanks, y'all. 
> 
> Tumblr: 12am  
> Art blog: 12am-ink  
> Pillowfort: Vine   
> Twitter: Touyata


End file.
